The small hill town "Ranpur" has always attracted me with it's breath taking natural beauty & rich historic values. since last 4 years i have been a constant visitor to this beautiful land during each rainy season. i believe pre-monsoon or post-monsoon are the best when ranpur natural beauty remains at it's peak. with monsoon touching odisha just few days back, i went on to the explore the epic land yet again. this year it was some really positive news, as the road to the upper maninag hill, temple gets completely ready.
Last year, it was completed up to 80% which means still one had to climb around one km to reach the original shrine of Goddess Maa Maninaga located in the peak point of the hill.
It is to be mentioned that upper maninaga temple is situated above 5 km distance above the ground level by road.
tHhe view of Raj-Ranpur township and surrounding region from the hilltop is simply extra ordinary and it's tough for me to describe it by words. So better to view few pictures those i clicked at the spot. i am specifying a brief history of the legends associated with Goddess maninaga below.
The famous Drutiya Srhiketra Jagannath temple of Raj Ranpur and Maninag Durga temple at top of adjacent maninag hill were built by ranpur's celebrated king udbhava singh narendra in the mid 14th century. Though the Goddess was getting worshiped in the region since Mahabharata era as per folklore.
The family history of this state describes, biswabasu and biswabasab two brothers of benu raj family lived in the forest of Nilagiri hill but were driven out. The younger brother biswabasab fled with a few attendants and took refuge in the valley of maninag hill, amidst vast forest tracts, sparsely inhabited. Biswabasab here established himself reclaiming the forest and gradually subdued bhuiyas of the neighboring villages. It is related that one day when biswabasab was walking in the forest he found an image of Goddess which he brought to maninag hill and worshiped her as Goddess Maninaga.
The Goddess being pleased with worship appeared before and directed him to live there and establish a village on the eastern side of the hill. Biswabasaba as per the wish of Goddess Maninaga established the village and named it as "Ranpur". He named it as ranpur in praise of the Goddess Maninag who earlier killed a demon named "Ranasura" ruling at this region.
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